OverSold Cruise?

[birdylady]

I just heard from that someone on our upcoming cruise was contacted by RCI to see if they would switch sailings as they have oversold it. Tell me HOW a cruise line can do that? There are a limited number of cabins. I know they have guarantee cabins, but at some point they need to stop selling when they have them all spoken for. Just saying.

 

Erika

[researchfreak90]

System errors happen in any industry from a multitude of causes, whats important is they caught it before sailing and made attempts to fix it insterad of the customer showing up and having nowhere to sleep.

[geomancer]

The same way airlines overbook, even though the number of seats is well known.

 

People cancel. Mistakes happen.

 

Cruise ships also have another variable planes do not have: lifeboats

 

If a cruise has a lot of 3+ person to a room bookings, they may be forced to sail with empty cabins due to not enough lifeboat space.

[jamon]

Can you find out what if anything they were offered....it would be interesting to know...thanks...

[Biker19]

Tell me HOW a cruise line can do that?

Sell too many GTY cabins.

[birdylady]

Can you find out what if anything they were offered....it would be interesting to know...thanks...

This is for the Majesty sailing this weekend. The person on my thread said they were offered 'Empress 4 night on Nov 16th for the same price paid and same accommodations'. Whatever those were I don't know.

 

 

Erika

[mcrcruiser]

When airlines ask you to vacate your seat reservation & can not get you to your original destination within a 2 hour new flight then they must pay you $1350 pp .

 

Don't know what happens when a cruise line over books . Is there any law that cover cruise line over booking ?

[steveru621]

Sell too many GTY cabins.

 

Absolutely. With the transition to NRD I'm seeing more, "We choose the room" , in other words, guarantee. The scary part is RCI almost seems nonchalant about this practice. Reading more and more stories of RCI not living up to their guarantee, either by downgrading or no cabin at all.

 

All this makes me very reluctant to book a guarantee. Are you listening RCI?

[Biker19]

All this makes me very reluctant to book a guarantee. Are you listening RCI?

Not really much of an issue; like the airlines, folks are bought off before anyone is actually bumped off a sailing.

[fred30]

The same way airlines overbook, even though the number of seats is well known.

 

Airlines deliberately overbook. Their booking systems are designed to overbook. I don't think the cruise industry deliberately overbook. It is most likely errors. There is no later cruise that day that they can entice anyone to take.

[Ourusualbeach]

Can you find out what if anything they were offered....it would be interesting to know...thanks...

 

On our Allure cruise last January we had 2 cabins with 2 in each cabin. Royal called us as the cruise was oversold and offered to refund everything we had paid fir both rooms with exception of port fees and taxes if we would agree to stay in a quad room as opposed to the two cabins. They also let us keep the $350 OBC per cabin that was associated with both cabins.

[happicruzer]

Not really much of an issue; like the airlines, folks are bought off before anyone is actually bumped off a sailing.

 

Not true in our case. We were bumped from large balcony guarantee to inside promenade, originally for an additional $462. Wouldn’t pay and had some negotiations including my husband refusing the inside cabin.

 

It came down to sail, for tips and taxes, get a refund or pay more to rebook on a later cruise.

 

According to Resolutions it would cost RCI too much money to comp us the same category cabin on a future cruise. We did get comped non refundable OBC for the $400 price increase for a lesser cabin as $800 was more than I wanted to pay.

 

I’ll sail with RCI but only last minute bargains which means I can expect another bounce. If they want to select my cabin, I don’t plan to book in advance so last minute for less works for me.

 

By the way, this happened on Friday for a cruise departing that Sunday.

Judy

[Ourusualbeach]

Not really much of an issue; like the airlines, folks are bought off before anyone is actually bumped off a sailing.

 

And bought off quite nicely.:D

[molly361]

On our Allure cruise last January we had 2 cabins with 2 in each cabin. Royal called us as the cruise was oversold and offered to refund everything we had paid fir both rooms with exception of port fees and taxes if we would agree to stay in a quad room as opposed to the two cabins. They also let us keep the $350 OBC per cabin that was associated with both cabins.

 

I was waiting for you to pop in here:halo:

[frugaltravel]

System errors happen in any industry from a multitude of causes, whats important is they caught it before sailing and made attempts to fix it insterad of the customer showing up and having nowhere to sleep.

 

It rarely has to do with system errors. It is usually intentional overbooking with the expectation that some people will end up canceling at the last minute, much like airlines overbook.

 

 

When airlines ask you to vacate your seat reservation & can not get you to your original destination within a 2 hour new flight then they must pay you $1350 pp .

 

Don't know what happens when a cruise line over books . Is there any law that cover cruise line over booking ?

 

Not quite like you said about airline compensation. Airlines ask for volunteers and in that case they can offer whatever they want. This is called voluntary denied boarding (VDB). Only when they don't get enough volunteers do they have to involuntarily deny boarding (IDB) to people, in whatever order the airline specifies in their contract of carriage. In the case of IDB then the $1,350/person kicks in though even that has some exceptions to the rule.

[land lover]

Not true in our case. We were bumped from large balcony guarantee to inside promenade, originally for an additional $462. Wouldn’t pay and had some negotiations including my husband refusing the inside cabin.

 

It came down to sail, for tips and taxes, get a refund or pay more to rebook on a later cruise.

 

According to Resolutions it would cost RCI too much money to comp us the same category cabin on a future cruise. We did get comped non refundable OBC for the $400 price increase for a lesser cabin as $800 was more than I wanted to pay.

 

I’ll sail with RCI but only last minute bargains which means I can expect another bounce. If they want to select my cabin, I don’t plan to book in advance so last minute for less works for me.

 

By the way, this happened on Friday for a cruise departing that Sunday.

Judy

 

Where was your cruise going out of? Was it within driving distance of your home?

[ginak1112]

My first cruise was the Sovereign of the Seas in 1991; it was the largest ship at the time. We booked an outside cabin (there were only a handful of balconies back then and they were in the suite class only) and the cost was $1800 for 2. It's amazing that I am going on HOS on Saturday and paid $1800 for a balcony guarantee (wound up getting a large balcony on the hump). Now we know why we are nickel and dimed to death in order to keep prices competitive. In 1991 there was breakfast, lunch, dinner , tea time and the midnight buffet served, no 24 hour options like today. Dining was so elegant with steak diane and caesar salad prepared table side. There were no specialty restaurants and drinks were $3 which was cheap even then, bingo cards were inexpensive and they gave away jackpot prizes of free cruises! We got a call a few weeks prior to our sailing that they had overbooked the ship and wanted to know if we would change to any other date and they would refund our money and we would sail free. Well we were young and lived in Miami, so heck ya we did it.

[geomancer]

Well we were young and lived in Miami, so heck ya we did it.

 

I'd be surprised if they didn't contact locals to the port first, far higher chance of people being okay getting bumped when no flights/hotels are involved.

[island lady]

I am at day 17 to sail away on Oasis. Booked JS W-GTY (only thing available for our usual choice of a JS at that time in early September).

 

Paid off the cruise early, before final payment.

 

And I still don't have a cabin assignment. :o

[actuarian]

My first cruise was the Sovereign of the Seas in 1991; it was the largest ship at the time. We booked an outside cabin (there were only a handful of balconies back then and they were in the suite class only)

 

Actually, I am pretty sure that there were no balconies at all on the Sovereign in 1991, not even in the suite class. The first time I was on the Sovereign was in the late 1990's and, at that time, even the Royal Suite did not have a balcony. Royal thought balconies and other stateroom amenities were unnecessary since their old marketing push was all about getting people out of their staterooms. In those days, all of the hype was about dining, entertainment and port visits; staterooms were hardly even mentioned. That changed in the early 2000s and that is when the balconies that were on on deck 10 of the Sovereign (and the Monarch) were added during dry docks.

[snoope]

I am at day 17 to sail away on Oasis. Booked JS W-GTY (only thing available for our usual choice of a JS at that time in early September).

 

Paid off the cruise early, before final payment.

 

And I still don't have a cabin assignment. :o

 

 

 

I wouldn’t be concerned. We had a Js guarantee and didn’t get assigned until 3 days prior. And then it even changed again on embarkation day.

 

 

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[island lady]

I wouldn’t be concerned. We had a Js guarantee and didn’t get assigned until 3 days prior. And then it even changed again on embarkation day.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Ahh..thanks! On which ship and what cabin/cabins did you finally end up with?:confused:

 

This is only the 2nd time I have booked a GTY cabin, booked early last September, attempting to do our usual choice of a JS...but only JS GTY was available. Paid off early before final payment.

 

On our first GTY, we were assigned a cabin within hours of paying off.

 

On our roll call thread, all of the other CC members that had GTY cabins have been assigned quite awhile ago, including one that booked just 3 days ago. Not sure why we are so different and why the need for such a hold up. :o

[grouchomarx]

Resorts do it all the time AND they don't even tell you in advance. They then shuffle you to some other resort you didn't even want to stay at. At least the cruise is trying to fix it ahead of time. And not throw you onto some other cruise ship last minute LOL! Imagine if they did that? How crazy would that be.

[snoope]

Ahh..thanks! On which ship and what cabin/cabins did you finally end up with?:confused:

 

 

 

This is only the 2nd time I have booked a GTY cabin, booked early last September, attempting to do our usual choice of a JS...but only JS GTY was available. Paid off early before final payment.

 

 

 

On our first GTY, we were assigned a cabin within hours of paying off.

 

 

 

On our roll call thread, all of the other CC members that had GTY cabins have been assigned quite awhile ago, including one that booked just 3 days ago. Not sure why we are so different and why the need for such a hold up. :o

 

 

 

It was Oasis. Our first cabin was a JS, then at check in it was changed to a GS.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Paulette3028]

I just heard from that someone on our upcoming cruise was contacted by RCI to see if they would switch sailings as they have oversold it. Tell me HOW a cruise line can do that? There are a limited number of cabins. I know they have guarantee cabins, but at some point they need to stop selling when they have them all spoken for. Just saying.

 

Erika

 

On our Allure cruise last January we had 2 cabins with 2 in each cabin. Royal called us as the cruise was oversold and offered to refund everything we had paid fir both rooms with exception of port fees and taxes if we would agree to stay in a quad room as opposed to the two cabins. They also let us keep the $350 OBC per cabin that was associated with both cabins.

 

 

 

Not true in our case. We were bumped from large balcony guarantee to inside promenade, originally for an additional $462. Wouldn’t pay and had some negotiations including my husband refusing the inside cabin.

 

It came down to sail, for tips and taxes, get a refund or pay more to rebook on a later cruise.

 

According to Resolutions it would cost RCI too much money to comp us the same category cabin on a future cruise. We did get comped non refundable OBC for the $400 price increase for a lesser cabin as $800 was more than I wanted to pay.

 

I’ll sail with RCI but only last minute bargains which means I can expect another bounce. If they want to select my cabin, I don’t plan to book in advance so last minute for less works for me.

 

By the way, this happened on Friday for a cruise departing that Sunday.

Judy

 

 

 

This is for the Majesty sailing this weekend. The person on my thread said they were offered 'Empress 4 night on Nov 16th for the same price paid and same accommodations'. Whatever those were I don't know.

 

 

Erika

 

The OP posted a query regarding being called by Royal to CHANGE THEIR CRUISE due to some 'overbooking' NOT simply to change their CABIN because one class of cabin on a ship somehow got overbooked.

 

I can see how overbooking could happen in a particular class, although that should be rare, but with the advent of guaranty cabin reservations, it would seem possible.